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How does one go about getting income based payments changed when one loses a job? Or other situations where current income is less than previous year's tax returns indicate?
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Mar 12, 2018 19:26
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Sub Rosa posted:How does one go about getting income based payments changed when one loses a job? Or other situations where current income is less than previous year's tax returns indicate? Call your servicer and you can get ibr recalculated. It can take a few months for new payment to go through
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Mar 12, 2018 19:44
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If you lose a job they can even pause your loans while recalculating their payments. Great Lakes has been a great servicer in this regard for me.
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Mar 12, 2018 21:03
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Residency Evil posted:On the topic of PSLF, I started out on IBR and then switched to REPAYE. I've made about 5.5 years worth of payments and have 4.5 years left. My 2017 taxes have me filing single. My 2018 taxes will reflect me getting married and have two incomes. If my REPAYE payments end up significantly higher, can I switch back to IBR? Would you be doing your taxes "Married, But Filing Separately" to benefit from IBR ignoring your spouse's income? Would you still have a Partial Financial Hardship with the income you'll be reporting for 2018? If you no longer have a PFH, you will not be able to switch back to IBR.
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Mar 12, 2018 23:41
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Ancillary Character posted:Would you be doing your taxes "Married, But Filing Separately" to benefit from IBR ignoring your spouse's income? Would you still have a Partial Financial Hardship with the income you'll be reporting for 2018? If you no longer have a PFH, you will not be able to switch back to IBR. I'm not sure which way would be better with regard to taxes. My understanding was that there was no income limit for IBR, and that payments were capped at the monthly payments for a standard 10 year repayment plan.
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Mar 12, 2018 23:51
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Residency Evil posted:I'm not sure which way would be better with regard to taxes. My understanding was that there was no income limit for IBR, and that payments were capped at the monthly payments for a standard 10 year repayment plan. If you are already on IBR and you keep re-certifying, you cannot be kicked off for no longer having a PFH; your payments are just capped at the original 10-year standard payment. However, if you're are on another payment plan, you cannot switch to IBR without a PFH. EDIT: Forgot to mention that your interest would also capitalize in the event you stopped having a PFH while on IBR. Ancillary Character fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Mar 13, 2018 |
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Mar 13, 2018 00:52
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Speaking of IBR, if you keep re-certifying, can you make extra payments or will that mess up the plan? When my wife originally got on IBR, her payments were capped to $34, but within that time frame we got married, both got new jobs and if we did not re-certify we would be put on regular 380/m payments. I'd like to avoid this for now and keep the 34/m payments, but it would be nice to throw future bonus money at some of the smaller loans to close them out (she has several 1-2k lines) to make sure interest doesn't runaway too much for 10 years. Is this possible, or gaming the system too much? At this point I would rather be investing the 380/m than try to spend another 3-4~ years aggressively paying down more student loans since mine are pretty much done.
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Mar 18, 2018 21:06
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Master Stur posted:Speaking of IBR, if you keep re-certifying, can you make extra payments or will that mess up the plan? When my wife originally got on IBR, her payments were capped to $34, but within that time frame we got married, both got new jobs and if we did not re-certify we would be put on regular 380/m payments. You have to recertify every year and they recalculate your payment each time based on updated financial info, so she won't keep her same rate. My question: I just got married and am on IBR and have 4 years left for PSLF. I make a bit more than my husband in taxable income, but he has no loan debt. Does it seem like we'd be better off filing jointly or separately? We filed jointly this year because the community property form (California) seemed confusing and like it might erase the benefit of filing separately anyway, but I'm not sure.
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Mar 18, 2018 21:40
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drat Your Eyes! posted:You have to recertify every year and they recalculate your payment each time based on updated financial info, so she won't keep her same rate. Ugh this poo poo never ends I guess  As for your question seems like filing separately is the way to go? We did joint and the combined AGI is what drives the payments back up to standard 10yr. By herself they would've been capped back down to the mid 100s.
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Mar 18, 2018 22:36
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drat Your Eyes! posted:You have to recertify every year and they recalculate your payment each time based on updated financial info, so she won't keep her same rate. My wife and I are in a very similar situation. We filed separately federal, and jointly for state (Massachusetts). Feds (for now) don't care about state filing. Not sure if ca requires same filing as fed, MA does not We might pay a bit more in taxes but it far outweighs the 3000 extra in student loan payments we would pay if we filed jointly for federal
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Mar 19, 2018 03:28
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Loan provider is Navient, just switched to them. How do I direct overpayment so as not to advance my due date (I think that's what I want - keep making auto payments, just applying the payment to principle)? I sent them a question about it and the response was:quote:We are unable to retain payment instructions; however, if you make your extra payment online at Navient.com, you can choose the Direct and Overpayment option to choose not to advance the due date, and keep the payment within the same month. But I don't see such an option when I click through the "make a payment" screens. I only have one outstanding loan, so this should be pretty simple.
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Mar 25, 2018 17:23
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Is the IBR calculator broken? I can't get it to display any estimated payments. I'm going to assume DeVOS!!!!! https://studentloans.gov/myDirectLoan/mobile/repayment/repaymentEstimator.action
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Mar 26, 2018 02:29
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It's bittersweet to note that my application for PSLF has been approved, and with it my servicing company will be switching from Great Lakes (with whom I've had a great, great relationship) to FedLoans or Navient (I actually can't remember which). On the one hand, I'm sad to lose this great relationship with a bank that's been really reasonable and accommodating, but on the other hand the prospect of loan forgiveness in just a few years is really awesome. My wife and I are both on track to hit our PSLF in less than 5 years, and now that we're "approved," it feels less crazy that it could actually happen.
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Mar 26, 2018 14:28
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:It's bittersweet to note that my application for PSLF has been approved, and with it my servicing company will be switching from Great Lakes (with whom I've had a great, great relationship) to FedLoans or Navient (I actually can't remember which). Sup, PSLF buddy. How are you guys doing taxes in this situation? I have under 5 years left as well, with a "moderate" balance (150k, now up to 180k with interest) left to be forgiven. I'm under REPAYE, with payments at only $1k/month, but I think they're going to go up significantly when I re-apply this fall using 2017 tax information, and even more so when I apply in 2019 using our 2018 married income.
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Mar 26, 2018 14:42
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Residency Evil posted:Sup, PSLF buddy. How are you guys doing taxes in this situation? I have under 5 years left as well, with a "moderate" balance (150k, now up to 180k with interest) left to be forgiven. I'm under REPAYE, with payments at only $1k/month, but I think they're going to go up significantly when I re-apply this fall using 2017 tax information, and even more so when I apply in 2019 using our 2018 married income. We are married filing jointly - we're both in IBR and both attendings, and I don't know that we could do it any more efficiently.
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Mar 26, 2018 16:36
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:We are married filing jointly - we're both in IBR and both attendings, and I don't know that we could do it any more efficiently. How are the tax savings from filing jointly even remotely better than what your payments are going to be when they calculate each of your incomes towards each others payments??? I did the math and our loans would both go up by like, thousands a month. Filing married but separate sucks but you might want to double check your math there.
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Mar 26, 2018 16:50
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They take both people's loans into account for IBR. So payments don't change.
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Mar 26, 2018 17:14
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potatoducks posted:They take both people's loans into account for IBR. So payments don't change. This. We have to cross apply everything. Again, note that we are BOTH physicians and are BOTH on IBR. Our loan repayments aren't usurious, even with pretty dece incomes.
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Mar 26, 2018 17:15
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potatoducks posted:They take both people's loans into account for IBR. So payments don't change. Wait - what? Do you have documentation on that? It was always my understanding that if you file jointly, your spouses income is used to calculate your payment under IBR. I did not see anything about them taking your spouse's loans into account. We did a ton of research on that and have been filing married but separate (both of us are also on IBR) so that we didn't have each other's income imputed to the other's for loan amount purposes. I will try and dig up the exact language later but if you have info to the contrary I really really really want to see it. Have never wanted to be more wrong in my life.
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Mar 26, 2018 17:25
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Yeah, I'm curious as well. My loans are on IBR, hers are not, but she's repaying them aggressively and they should be gone in 2 years.
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Mar 26, 2018 17:27
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I MFS and my wife has loans in PSLF and I have none. If we filed jointly the payment would go up by like 5x Might make sense to get divorced just for student loan payments... gently caress our education funding
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Mar 26, 2018 17:36
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E-Money posted:Wait - what? Do you have documentation on that? It was always my understanding that if you file jointly, your spouses income is used to calculate your payment under IBR. I did not see anything about them taking your spouse's loans into account. We did a ton of research on that and have been filing married but separate (both of us are also on IBR) so that we didn't have each other's income imputed to the other's for loan amount purposes. I will try and dig up the exact language later but if you have info to the contrary I really really really want to see it. Have never wanted to be more wrong in my life. If you BOTH have loans being repaid under IBR, BOTH incomes are used to calculate the payments but BOTH payments are considered. I don't know where this is documented, but it's been true for the literal years we've been in repayment?
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Mar 26, 2018 17:39
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E-Money posted:Wait - what? Do you have documentation on that? It was always my understanding that if you file jointly, your spouses income is used to calculate your payment under IBR. I did not see anything about them taking your spouse's loans into account. We did a ton of research on that and have been filing married but separate (both of us are also on IBR) so that we didn't have each other's income imputed to the other's for loan amount purposes. I will try and dig up the exact language later but if you have info to the contrary I really really really want to see it. Have never wanted to be more wrong in my life. The way its supposed to work when both spouses are under IBR and filing jointly is they calculate your total household payment with the IBR formula (15% of discretionary income) and then split that amount between each spouse in proportion to the amount of their IBR-eligible loans. Theoretically, if both spouses have loans under IBR, there should be no difference in the total household student loan payments between MFJ and MFS, barring differences in AGI from credit and deduction phase outs between the two filing statuses.
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Mar 26, 2018 17:44
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Wow, that directly contradicts everything that i've been told by fedloan, all my research into the program, and what all of both of our colleagues have had to say about it. Would be very interested to see where this is laid out and how your spouse's loans are taken to account for the purposes of calculating your loan amount. My understanding was that they just tack on your spouse's AGI to yours and calculate from there. What do they do to reduce it by your spouse's loan amount?
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Mar 26, 2018 17:47
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https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/default/files/income-driven-repayment-q-and-a.pdf 32.If my spouse also has federal student loans, how will this affect the determination of my eligibility for an income-driven repayment plan or my monthly payment amount? This depends on the plan, as explained below. PAYE Plan and IBR Plan If you and your spouse file a joint federal income tax return, your servicer will use your combined eligible student loan debt when determining your eligibility for the PAYE Plan or the IBR Plan, and will automatically adjust your payment amount proportionally, based on each spouse’s share of the total loan debt. If you file separate federal income tax returns, only your eligible student loan debt will be used when determining your eligibility for the plan, and there will be no adjustment to your payment amount if your spouse also has eligible loans. Y'all be paying extra taxes.
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Mar 26, 2018 17:49
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what.the.gently caress. need to do some more homework then.
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Mar 26, 2018 18:12
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This was changed sometime around 8 years ago so maybe you got old information?
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Mar 26, 2018 18:19
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Okay, so sorry to totally hijack this thread for a bit. Is there a federal calculator that can crunch the numbers for us using live data each way? There are some other factors to consider (my wife is on PSLF IBR, and also gets a certain stipend for her loan payments that we wouldn't be able to apply to mine, we do some loving around with who does what pre-tax deductions to try and make my IBR payments lower, etc.) Would love to be able to A/B compare our payments now vs if we filed jointly, but it sounds like there's probably no case in which we wouldn't want to file jointly now.
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Mar 26, 2018 18:24
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So in my situation, if I'm doing IBR and she's not: I need to: 1. Run the taxes for married filing jointly 2. Run the taxes for married filing separately 3. Calculate my IBR payments for MFJ 4. Calculate my IBR payments for MFS 5. See if my IBR payments for MFJ are greater than the tax savings for MFJ than MFS. Does this sound right?
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Mar 26, 2018 18:38
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How trustworthy is Earnest for student loan refinancing?
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Mar 26, 2018 18:49
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E-Money posted:Okay, so sorry to totally hijack this thread for a bit. Is there a federal calculator that can crunch the numbers for us using live data each way? There are some other factors to consider (my wife is on PSLF IBR, and also gets a certain stipend for her loan payments that we wouldn't be able to apply to mine, we do some loving around with who does what pre-tax deductions to try and make my IBR payments lower, etc.) Would love to be able to A/B compare our payments now vs if we filed jointly, but it sounds like there's probably no case in which we wouldn't want to file jointly now. No calculator that I know of, but I don't think any of the things that you mention should affect this decision. Can't really think of a reason why it would still be advantageous for you to file separately. Residency Evil posted:So in my situation, if I'm doing IBR and she's not: Yeah pretty much. I'm sure there are tons of little caveats and corner cases but that's the gist of it.
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Mar 26, 2018 19:01
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Residency Evil posted:So in my situation, if I'm doing IBR and she's not: This is what we do. The most annoying piece is not being able to contribute to a Roth IRA, and not being able to take some deductions (student loan interest deduction)
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Mar 26, 2018 19:26
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The Slack Lagoon posted:This is what we do. The most annoying piece is not being able to contribute to a Roth IRA, and not being able to take some deductions (student loan interest deduction) Why can't you contribute to a Roth?
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Mar 26, 2018 19:45
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Residency Evil posted:Why can't you contribute to a Roth? MFS
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Mar 26, 2018 19:51
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I think you can still do a backdoor Roth, however.
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Mar 26, 2018 19:52
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Residency Evil posted:So in my situation, if I'm doing IBR and she's not: Yup that's what I do every year. Blargh Residency Evil posted:I think you can still do a backdoor Roth, however. Correct
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Mar 26, 2018 20:28
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I have been running numbers all evening - is there something different about how they calculate your combined discretionary income? Or am I missing something? You get to subtract 150% of the federal poverty guideline for your family size. If you file separately, each spouse gets to do that. If you file jointly, aren't you just subtracting that 150% of the federal poverty guideline once? So the rough math is this for IBR (not for new borrowers), right? Filing Separate: Spouse 1- ((AGI - 150% of federal poverty guideline) *.15)/12 to get your monthly payment Spouse 2 - ((AGI - 150% of federal poverty guideline) *.15)/12 to get your monthly payment Filing Jointly: ((Combined AGI - 150% of federal poverty guideline) *.15)/12 to get your monthly payment. With two kids, that 150% number is a big one and getting to subtract it for each of us makes a huge deal. Filing jointly we end up paying roughly $400 a month more in loans than if we filed separate. I understand that if we file jointly, we can claim more deductions and lower our AGIs - but we would need to shave off almost 38K from our combined AGI to have the monthly payments match what we pay filing separately. Am I missing something about how the combined discretionary income is calculated? You all are talking like your loans won't go up if you file jointly vs separate, but we also ran the numbers through the studentloans.gov calculators and they bore that out as well. Is the assumption that you can just make it up in your tax returns because you can claim more deductions?
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Mar 27, 2018 01:48
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For us we end up paying a bit more in taxes but less in student loans - and net we pay less total because of this. Our situation is: incomes roughly equal, and only one of us has loans. I'm not sure how the maths work if both people have PSLF eligible loans because it wasn't useful to me personally. And yes, I could do a backdoor Roth, but I have a rollover IRA - would I have to backdoor that into a Roth to be able to do trad IRA -> bd Roth?
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Mar 27, 2018 03:40
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punk rebel ecks fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Mar 29, 2018 |
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Mar 27, 2018 19:07
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FedLoan is your servicer if you're applying for PSLF. Though I've still not seen anything about anyone who's made 10 years of payments actually getting their loans forgiven yet, so we'll see. We're 5 years out from forgiveness too. As an aside, the customer service reps at FedLoan seem to not have the greatest grasp of the finer details of how the various programs work. Wife spoke with them the other day and said we could lower the monthly payment by switching from IBR to PAYE. Except our first loans were disbursed before 10/07, so we don't qualify and get to eat the 15% discretionary income payment instead of the 10% one with the newer plans, so they were completely wrong about it. So would do your homework rather than trust blindly what they tell you about this stuff.
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Mar 29, 2018 01:47
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